Is Mayor Johnston Meeting His Campaign Promises?

Mayor Mike Johnston came into office last July with a lot of enthusiasm and some ~really~ big promises. So now that it’s been a full year since his inauguration, we’re checking in on the state of some of his major campaign pledges.

🏠 Homelessness and Housing

The promise: While Johnston made a lot of grandiose promises on this particular issue, his biggest one was to end homelessness in his first four-year term. While he’s still got a long way to go, he is making strides.

Per his one-year report on the All In Mile High initiative that his office published last week, the program has moved 1,673 unsheltered Denverites indoors and connected 583 people to permanent housing since the mayor took office. For context, the 2023 annual Point-In-Time count tallied 9,065 people experiencing homelessness in metro Denver on a single night last January. Additionally, the annual "State of Homelessness Report" released by the Denver Metro Homeless Initiative reported more than 30,000 metro Denver residents used homelessness services over a 12-month period.

Still, the program isn’t without its flaws. Critics have questioned who benefits from this program, the quality of service provided by the city’s biggest contractor, and what counts as a negative or positive housing outcome.

The promise: Johnston pledged to make Denver the “safest big city in America” through a strong, compassionate, and fair approach to public safety. The plan is multi-faceted, but one of the most notable goals in this department was to beef up the presence of first responders — EMTs, mental health clinicians, and police officers — on the streets of Denver.

Last September, Johnston committed $8.2 million of the city’s 2024 budget to bring the Denver police force to its full authorized potential by adding 167 more officers. In April of this year, a status check showed the city was off track for that goal with its first two recruit classes of the year coming in well under what officials had hoped for. He also launched the Denver Office of Neighborhood Safety in May.

The new office will take over managing things like the city’s youth safety programs and the alternative-policing Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program. Though many question if it will make a meaningful change to the city’s public safety approach or “simply shuffle responsibilities within the same structure.” In his State of the City address on Monday, the mayor also unveiled a new plan for “trust patrols”, which would potentially place police officers on regular beats in neighborhoods across Denver.

Overall though, in a recent survey from the Colorado Polling Institute, 58% of respondents stated they believe the mayor “has made no progress or needs to do more on crime and public safety.”

🌎 Climate

The promise: Push Denver toward full electrification.

Bad news: The most recent report from the city’s office of climate action showed that Denver is way off course for hitting its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. Good news: The city’s e-bike rebate program continues to be a hit. The city is also working toward Johnston’s pledge to ban gas appliances in new residential construction, but is facing multiple lawsuits against the proposed plan.

Also part of his climate goals, the mayor has vowed to boost RTD ridership, make it free for commuters under 20 and over 65, and improve reliability and service. While the RTD is currently testing out a “free fare for youth” pilot program, there’s been no such luck for those 65 and older. And although it seems RTD has been facing one troubleafter another lately, Denverite reports that ridership is indeed up by more than 11% since this time last year.

🏙️ Overall

The promise: Make Denver America's best city

The jury is still out on this one. U.S. News and World Report might only rank Denver as the country’s 40th best city to live in, but a recent survey of Denverites shows that most of us are pretty happy here. His State of the City address mentioned his “vibrant Denver” campaign that rolled out in May, with the mayor promising to “make the largest ever investment in downtown without raising taxes…[and] turn downtown from a central business district to a central neighborhood district, complete with affordable housing, public parks, child care, great retail, restaurants, art and music and walkable activated streets..."

👉 Dive Deeper: View an exhaustive breakdown of the mayor’s pledges online to judge for yourself how he’s doing.